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Homelessness among schoolchildren has reached record levels in the United States, with more than one million without a home.

During the 2010-2011 school year, there were 1,065,794 homeless students in preschools and K-12 schools, according to the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty.

This marked the first time in history that public schools reported more than one million homeless children and youth.

Nationally, the total of homeless students increased 13% from the previous year (2009-2010). In 15 states, the increase was 20% or higher. Kentucky and Utah experienced a 47% jump, Michigan and West Virginia 38%, and Mississippi 35%.

Wow... no connection between the rise and Chairman Maobama. Instead it is being sold as America's shortcoming. I wonder if those parents were working, how many "schoolchildren" would sill be homeless...

Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.
Ronald Reagan

We could say they are spending like drunken sailors. That would be unfair to drunken sailors, they're spending their OWN money.
Ronald Reagan

I don't see the complaint. This is the number that their formula produced. If there is a legitimate complaint it's probably in the definition of homeless. As heartbreaking as it might be to see kids living in residential motels or migrant trailer parks , it's really not the same thing as sleeping on a park bench or under the overpass. At the dawn of the 20th century we had some pretty dreadful conditions in America's cities which made living on a farm with no power or plumbing seem idyllic. Those same children who lived in those powerless and plumbingless farm houses would today be taken by DCF because of "deplorable conditions" I suspect.

All of this BS centers around the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, passed back in '87. The idea at the time was to find ways to help out families who turned out homeless, ostensibly through no fault of their own, all part of that "do something!!!" legislation on homelessness after the Left humanely closed down all the insane asylums and sent all those people out into the streets with a prescription and nothing else. Anyway, what's important here is just exactly what the definition of a "homeless student" is:

Clary then worked with national advocates to ensure that the protections afforded to homeless children by the Illinois statute were incorporated into the McKinney Act. That point, the McKinney Act was amended to become the McKinney-Vento Act. That Act uses the Illinois statute in defining homeless children as “individuals who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence.” The Act then goes on to give examples of children who would fall under this definition:

(a) Children sharing housing due to economic hardship or loss of housing;
(b) Children living in “motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camp grounds due to lack of alternative accommodations”
(c) Children living in “emergency or transitional shelters”
(d) Children “awaiting foster care placement”
(e) Children whose primary nighttime residence is not ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation (e.g. park benches, etc.)
(f) Children living in “cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, bus or train stations…”

Well, the definition problems here are a mile wide. First of all, the definition of "nighttime residence" is very intentionally left wide open to any interpretation anyone wants it to be, so much so that at least back in the mid-'90s, I was aware of many cases in which "latchkey kids" who lived in certainly adequate, and often quite nice, homes were deemed "homeless" because they were latchkey kids and there wasn't a parent in the home between 3:30 and 5:00 in the afternoon, so that wasn't "adequate housing" for the hour and a half that those kids watched cartoons in the afternoon, and thus the school qualified for a grant for each of those "homeless children." And of course there's a bit of a problem with defining everyone who lives in a trailer as being "homeless." Sure, there are much better housing options out there than trailers, but plenty of them are plenty nice and certainly adequate housing; my ex-wife grew up in a trailer and her mother still lives in that same trailer to this very day, and while it's not marble floors and Swarovski chandeliers, it's very comfortable housing for her and has been nicely modified to accommodate her in her wheelchair. And one of the biggest middle-fingers I've seen out of this was at least one relatively wealthy school district who were taking (e) to a ludicrous extreme by saying that kids who played basketball and football and were in the band and whatnot after school were using a "nighttime residence not ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation," because it was after school hours and sometimes in the winter basketball practice isn't over until after the sun goes down. Cha-CHING! Every kid who does some after-school activity is suddenly "homeless" and qualifies for a grant to the school.

This whole idea about helping out whole families who have lost their homes started out as a noble enough idea, but, surprisingly (not!), it pretty much immediately became a federal giveaway program restrained only by the scrupulousness of local school administration officials in their own little fiefdoms who could (and still can) pretty much create their own definitions of who qualifies for these federal grants, and of course, the more students who qualify, the more gravy comes in on that federal train. So of course these numbers are going to seem a mile high most particularly in tough times when school districts have to get "creative" on getting their funding. And the advocacy groups who are the fed's "point people" certainly have every interest in seeing as many people as possible who qualify, so they're going to push these numbers as high as possible.

So, in summary, it's a BS number made up by a BS advocacy group acting at the behest of the federal government, and then repeated ad nauseum by a bunch of other BS advocacy groups as if it were fact, and then wept over by a bunch of liberal suckers who eagerly believe this crap because it fits their bigoted Leftist stereotype.

McKinney-Vento act is something that the bio parents of foster kids, who get their kids back, love. Foster kids qualify as "homeless students" through that act. In Michigan alone, that number could be up to 11,000, and we are not the largest state with the largest numbers of foster kids. It is possible that half of that million are kids in the foster care system.

It's great for our kids, because they get placed usually in the suburbs, at far better schools than the Detroit system offers. Then they get to stay at that school for about a year after they come home. Sometimes, if the suburban district likes the kid, they will keep the kid indefinitely, because it ups their enrollment numbers for the school aid formula.

McKinney-Vento act is something that the bio parents of foster kids, who get their kids back, love. Foster kids qualify as "homeless students" through that act. In Michigan alone, that number could be up to 11,000, and we are not the largest state with the largest numbers of foster kids. It is possible that half of that million are kids in the foster care system.

It's great for our kids, because they get placed usually in the suburbs, at far better schools than the Detroit system offers. Then they get to stay at that school for about a year after they come home. Sometimes, if the suburban district likes the kid, they will keep the kid indefinitely, because it ups their enrollment numbers for the school aid formula.

Just guessing, but I would bet it also includes kids in transitional housing like kids in domestic violence shelters with the abused parent. The number sounds like wildly-inflated BS as opposed to the true number of kids who are actually living the life of DUmmie Bobo the Hobo.

Homeless activist Mitch Snyder used to make outlandish claims about the numbers of homeless in the US and the media dutifully passed them on without so much as a second's hesitation, even though a cursory examination of his numbers produced mind-numbing inconsistencies. Remember when he claimed that 45 homeless people died every second? A number of media outlets "corrected" him by claiming that it was one homeless person every 45 seconds (or four every three minutes), but even that gives astronomical death tolls (doing the math gives you 700,800 deaths per year, the equivalent of 26 years of highway fatalities, or 14 Vietnam wars).

Originally Posted by Apache

Wow... no connection between the rise and Chairman Maobama. Instead it is being sold as America's shortcoming. I wonder if those parents were working, how many "schoolchildren" would sill be homeless...

Homelessness used to be an indictment of our culture, at least when Reagan and the Bushes were in the White House, but when Democrats are in office, those reports disappear. I remember Rush Limbaugh predicting that homelessness would cease to be reported when Clinton took office, and he was absolutely right.

I've objected to this "data" ever since learning that they counted trailer parks as "homeless." I live in northern NY, where the economy is modest, to say the least. Mobile homes are all some people can afford all their lives, and that's that. They're not homeless, they just have a humble abode.

Also, I wonder if they count all those kids you see being raised by their grandparents? I see this a lot.

I've objected to this "data" ever since learning that they counted trailer parks as "homeless." I live in northern NY, where the economy is modest, to say the least. Mobile homes are all some people can afford all their lives, and that's that. They're not homeless, they just have a humble abode.

Also, I wonder if they count all those kids you see being raised by their grandparents? I see this a lot.